21 May 2008

Confirm deletion of love

12 August 2007

Overplayed

"We've spoken with a health-care specialist who believes that the intensity of your research efforts is unhealthy."

OK, so Sharkrunners has issued me with a health warning, and I was up until 3am last night scrabbing in Facebook with Australians. In my defence, I was deliberately staying up late to get a good view of the Perseids meteor shower. And, anyway, neither Sharkrunners nor Facebook Scrabble can be played with any real intensity. In Scrabble, you're kept in check by the turn-taking (why do all of my opponents take so bloody long to make a move?) and in Sharkrunners you're waiting to be alerted to an encounter. According to area/code, the developers of Sharkrunners, ships in the game move in real-time towards sharks that are representations of real-world white sharks with GPS units attached to their fins.

So it's intermittent play and in that sense reminds me of Twitchr, Matt's mobile play prototype. In Twitchr, digital birds visit your mobile phone and you have a short, intense moment in which to snap them. I like these playful interruptions.

And I enjoyed a 'sometaithurts' moment when Dame Stella Rimington, former director-general of the MI5, reviewed the exhibition for The Times: Unlock the secrets of the spying game. I was surprised by how much Dame Stella engaged with the more playful interactives during her visit and was particularly pleased that she noted the balance we were trying to strike between a fun role-play experience and a thought-provoking examination of surveillance:

The Science of Spying exhibition is very well conceived and
researched. While offering a fun and exciting experience, it quite rightly
avoids the James Bond approach. More than that, though, it will give the
reflective 12-year-old some important issues to think about. When is
surveillance justified? Who should be using all the gadgetry that science
has provided, and against whom? And with what checks and balances?

It hit number 1 critic's choice in Time Out ("It's hard to imagine a 10 year old that won't love it", John O'Connell) and was generally well-received. But probably my favourite review is this 'end of the day' account posted to Google Video:

So, if you've been meaning to see it, you've got less than a month to get to the Science Museum. But if you do miss it, you're likely to have another chance. The exhibition will tour for up to 5 years, around the UK, Europe and the US.

Update: the exhibition's run at the Science Museum has been extended to Sunday 28 October 2007.

08 September 2006

'Future spy' call for ideas

For the past six months I've been managing the development of SPYMAKER: The Science of Spying, an interactive exhibition for 8-12 year olds and their families. It opens at the Science Museum next February and then tours for up to five years.

We've just released an open call (pdf) inviting ideas for surveillance and counter-surveillance products of the near future.

We're looking for ideas that are provocative, plausible (could happen), credible (can be
explained) and easily communicable to 8-12 year olds in a museum context. The ideas should be submitted as sketches rather than detailed designs because selected concepts will be developed by leading designers for exhibition. Auger-Loizeau, Dunne & Raby, El Ultimo Grito, Noam Toran, Onkar Singh Kular, and Troika have all agreed to take part.